PwC Uses App To Help Upskill Company
The professional services network PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, was looking for a way to prepare its workforce of some 50,000 employees for the rapid changes in technology. They knew that to be able to help their workers meet the challenges of the almost constant disruption that is now occurring for many organizations, PwC would need to create something that could assist workers in learning their strength while pinpointing areas for improvement.
HR Dive’s Riia O’Donnell reported that two years ago, PwC launched a mobile accessible, digital app which employees can access anonymously and get results in 15 minutes. The app can then refer the worker to resources both within the company itself or those which are external in order to improve their skills.
According to Rod Adams, PwC’s lead recruiter, “We believe workers need to move from awareness to intelligence at their own pace and when they’re ready to learn,” he said in the interview.
PwC launched a limited pilot program within the company asking workers if they would be interested in receiving training and becoming a resource for their teams within the organization. No experience was necessary in order to participate. The offer was successful with more than 3,500 PwC employees volunteering. The company selected 1,100 from a diverse pool of workers who showed interest in the training to be a part of the initial launch of what Adams and his team dubbed “The Accelerator Academy”.
The workers participating in the Accelerator Academy were trained for a period of one month with the first two weeks being a program of total immersion followed by two weeks of 10 hours of work. Adams was pleased to see that the Accelerator Academy boasted a 95% completion rate for the initial launch of the program. This promising approach to upskilling PwC’s workforce has been so successful that the company expects to reinitiate it again later this spring.
